Man gets prison term for using forged military document
A Virginia circuit court judge sentenced former Las Vegas resident Richard R. Cruze Jr., who posed as a highly decorated Army colonel, to seven months in prison on two felony fraud charges linked to a forged military document.
Loudoun County Circuit Court Presiding Judge Thomas D. Horne also on Monday fined Cruze and charged him court costs totaling $1,730.
In addition, Horne ordered Cruze to work 100 hours of community service per year during three years of supervised probation and to attend counseling sessions and mental health evaluations.
Cruze, 55, pleaded guilty March 30 to possessing a forged public document – in this case a fake military ID – and falsifying an application to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles to obtain Special Forces license plates.
He was arrested Feb. 2 in Leesburg, Va., on three felony fraud charges and one misdemeanor.
A Leesburg police detective investigating a tip about Cruze claiming to be a medical doctor for a weight-loss clinic confiscated a phony military identification that Cruze had used to obtain license plates reserved for Special Forces veterans.
Bill Anton, past president of Special Forces Association Chapter 51, said Tuesday that Cruze’s two felony convictions “are well-deserved.”
Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Angela Vernail has said there is nothing in Virginia law that would prohibit Cruze from being prosecuted under the federal Stolen Valor Act, which targets impostors who make false claims about military titles and valor awards.
The U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has not prosecuted anyone under the Stolen Valor Act, which is under review by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the issue of free speech.
In 2004 in Las Vegas, Cruze raised the suspicions of former Army Rangers when he showed up at the Riviera for their annual conference wearing a dress-blue uniform bearing a colonel insignia and numerous ribbons and medals on his jacket. But when he was asked about his military career by attendees, his comments didn’t fit with events, locations and dates of military operations.
A month before the conference, Cruze spoke to fifth-graders gathered for a career day event at a Las Vegas elementary school, where he wore a green Class A Army uniform and a display of ribbons. A source familiar with his career day presentation said he gave the students a “drill sergeant” routine and later remarked that he hoped he hadn’t been too hard on the students.
Cruze posted a résumé with a nursing organization that said he served in Vietnam from June 1969 to September 1970 as a combat medic and had earned the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Cross of Gallantry, Soldiers Medal and the Army Distinguished Service Medal.
Military records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by a watchdog group, the POW Network, show Cruze never served in combat and received no valor awards or decorations. Instead, he is listed as an Army reservist from July 21, 1988, to Jan. 3, 1994, who served on inactive status for a hospital unit in Phoenix.
In 2005, a Las Vegas police detective, who was part of an FBI task force, investigated Cruze for driving with Nevada license plates reserved for wounded war veterans. The detective confiscated Cruze’s Nevada Purple Heart license tags, but the U.S. attorney’s office declined to charge Cruze with violations of the Stolen Valor Act, citing limited resources and personnel.
Contact reporter Keith Rogers at
krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.
